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How to Brew Compost Tea

by Travis C | Mar 4, 2020 | 420

Growing organically should be the eventual goal of every grower, and brewing your own compost tea is the first step.

For most, growing “organic” is a lot easier said than done. At first it might seem like there’s a plethora of organic nutrients out there that do the same thing as synthetics. But a brand name and even a label isn’t always honest.

There are dozens of nutrients, fertilizers and other plant products that might have “organics” in the name, but this doesn’t guarantee the product itself is organic. But you can avoid a lot of the false marketing by starting your organic grow with a compost tea.

What is Compost?

If you grew up with a pile of food and vegetable scraps in the backyard, you’re already familiar with compost. Compost is simply just organic material that is combined together to produce a breeding ground for beneficial microbes and bacteria.

A healthy compost tea pulls the soluble nutrients and microorganisms from compost; this includes bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. Nematodes do not have a life cycle that is rapid enough to increase their population in the time it takes to brew a tea.

However, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa can all increase their populations with the right foods and conditions. Once you’ve got the right mix you want for your compost, you can begin mixing your tea.

How to brew compost tea

Compost tea is literally just that, tea. Like you would brew up a cup of tea with a teabag, you’ll want to put your compost into a fine micron bag to ensure it doesn’t spill into your water while it is brewing. But before you add anything to anything, you need to make sure your water is aerated with an air pump. This is important especially if your water source is chlorinated, as aerating your water will remove it.

Once you’re ready to start brewing, you’ll want to use roughly 5 pounds of compost for every 25 gallons of water. In addition to the compost you add in, there are other beneficials you can add to enhance your compost tea.

You can add in 1–2 tablespoons of humic acid and dilute it in 2 cups of water before adding it into the tea. You can also use 1–2 tablespoons of fish hydrolysate as an alternative. Now go ahead and mix ½ cup of kelp into 5 cups of water. Once adequately mixed, add this into the compost tea for a highly nutritious punch.

Once you have all your ingredients together and your compost is in the water, all you need to do is wait. Ideally compost tea will take 24-36 hours to complete brewing. Make sure you keep an eye on the temperature of your water, as temperature is essential for the development of bacteria and fungi.

The optimum temperature for healthy compost tea is between 65-85 degree Fahrenheit.

Applying your tea

There are two popular ways to apply your compost tea to your plants. The simplest option is to use the compost tea as a soil drench, applying it during your regular feedings for optimal nutrient uptake.

The other option requires a little more gear, and that’s applying your compost tea as a foliar spray. With a sprayer you can walk the grow and spray down your plants making sure they are completely covered. Doing so can put beneficial fungi and even predatory nematodes on your leaves to protect against predators.

And that’s about it! When it comes to making compost tea, the most essential ingredient is obviously the compost. Make sure your compost is fully developed and not still breaking down the organic material within. It should look and smell like fresh soil from the earth when it is ready to use in a tea. And there is always more you can do to produce healthier, more beneficial compost.

You can also greatly simplify the brewing process by using a compost tea brewer. While these can be expensive, The Real Dirt is working with Cutting Edge Solutions to provide an incredible deal on their 15-gallon and 35-gallon brewers. When you buy a ticket to our Organic Cultivation Seminar, you can save over $500.00 on these compost tea brewers, all included with a full-day seminar on organic cultivation.

Everything from the basics of organic cultivation, to building your own organic soil and brewing compost tea efficiently will be covered at this seminar, all for an incredible price.

Is Cannabis Flower Falling Behind?

by Travis C | Feb 20, 2020 | 420, 420 Culture & Travel, 420 News, Blog, Business, Culture, Science & Technology

Until recently, most people who tried cannabis for the first time, tried it by smoking flower.

The times are changing, and the demographic of people trying cannabis for the first time is changing too. The tradition of a couple buddies in the woods smoking out of an apple is slowly being replaced by 75 year old grandmas going to the dispensary for a vape pen.

Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But not by much.

As popular as extracts are becoming, are they really putting cannabis flower at risk of falling off in popularity? The short answer is that it already has.

The rise of concentrates

Cannabis concentrates didn’t become popular until 2014, when legal cannabis really started to kick off in Colorado. The most common types were shatter and wax, both of which are processed using Butane as a solvent.

At first, a lot of consumers avoided concentrates not just for their increased potency, but also because of the process used to make them. In the early days of cannabis extraction, there were dozens of accidents involving lab fires, explosions, and un-purged concentrates that would catch on fire when dabbed.

Due to the unreliability of extractors at the time, unfamiliarity with the product and process, and the high cost compared to cannabis flower, cannabis concentrate sales hardly surpassed 10% of total cannabis sales in 2014.

Just in the last 5 years however cannabis concentrates have developed exponentially. Cleaner, tastier concentrates like distillate, live resin and rosin grew in popularity. With the rise in e-cigarette users across the country, cannabis vape pens started becoming more popular as well.

As more concentrate brands entered the market, prices dropped, making concentrates more affordable for the average consumer. A gram that would cost $50 in 2014 was only $20 in 2018.

And just like that, cannabis concentrates took up 27% of total cannabis product sales in 2018. And that number is steadily rising.

Convenience and cost

The biggest bump to concentrate sales over the last two years has been due to vape pens. With more legal cannabis available across the country, more people began looking for a quick and easy way to use cannabis that doesn’t involve rolling a joint or packing a bowl.

Vape pens made it simple for anybody to get a quick, discreet puff of cannabis oil and receive the same effect as smoking a joint, more or less.

The rise in older cannabis consumers taking advantage of the medical and recreational cannabis and the desire for a more versatile and discreet consumption mechanism led to vape pens filling the void.

Even though vape pens are traditionally more expensive than cannabis flower, the concentrated doses make the product last much longer for casual consumers, making them much more cost effective.

But the vape pen industry took a major hit in 2019 when the country was hit by the “vape crisis”.

A serious issue

If there’s a cannabis product that is seeing success in the legal industry, it’s a guarantee there is someone replicating it in the illicit market. And in any market, there will be bad actors who care more about profits than the customer.

These snake-oil salesmen cut their vape pen cartridges with a liquid form of Vitamin E. When heated up, Vitamin E turned into Vitamin E Acetate, a toxic gas that would reconvert to a viscous solid in consumer’s lungs.

If that sounds bad, it was.

A total of 64 people died due to the illness caused by these faulty products, with another 2,758 hospitalized.

Suffice to say, the vape pen industry took a major hit during this time as many consumers questioned whether or not their vape pens were safe. But like most health scares that spread across the media like a wildfire, this “crisis” faded away in a matter of months, and vape pens have steadily risen back to where they were, with no signs of stopping.

The future of cannabis flower and concentrates

Consumer spending on cannabis concentrates rose 49% in 2018, pulling in $2.9 Billion. By 2022, spending is expected to reach $8.4 Billion. Cannabis flower sales still made up 43% of sales, but vape pens alone made up 23%, and cannabis concentrates other than vape pens made up only 9%.

Vape pens have become the main form of consumption method for cannabis concentrates, but cannabis flower still sits at the top as the most affordable, and frankly easier option for consumers.

As easy to use as vape pens are, they aren’t for everybody. Staying on top of charging, making sure you’re cartridge doesn’t get clogged, these are things that some people just don’t want to deal with.

Grinding up a little bit of bud in your fingers and tossing it in a bowl will work every time, as long as you have a lighter.

I like to say that cannabis flower is King (or more accurately, Queen). It doesn’t matter what new creative products come out, the majority of those who consume cannabis will always have the nostalgic enjoyment you can only get from cannabis flower.

That flashback to the first time, the funniest place you had to smoke, and all those great memories.

Sure, we’ll have some of those memories with concentrates and all the crazy places you can easily sneak in a vape pen, but it just won’t be the same. At least for me.

Virginia Marijuana Laws Might Be Changing

by Travis C | Feb 12, 2020 | 420, 420 News, Blog, Cannabis Law, Cannabis Law and Compliance, Culture

When you think of cannabis friendly, Virginia definitely isn’t one of the states that comes to mind. But that could be changing.

The state House on Monday passed HB 972, a decriminalization bill, with bipartisan support. Delegates voted 64-34 for the measure, with a number of Republicans joining Democrats in favor. The state Senate is expected to pass its own version shortly.

If passed, the legislation would scrap criminal charges for possessing marijuana and replace them with small fines. Supporters have argued the measure is needed in part because African Americans are disproportionately charged with drug crimes.

Virginia Marijuana Laws

Virginia marijuana laws have always been strict, with the most minor offense having the potential of jail time for possession of a half ounce. Right now, a person who is found with half an ounce of the drug can be jailed for up to 30 days and/or be fined $500. The second time it happens, jail time is increased up to a year and the fine increases up to $2,500.

To make matters worse, the state has a proven track record of negatively impacting minority communities with Virginia marijuana laws, specifically people of color. In fact, people of color are currently three times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white people. But the reality is that no matter their skin color, people arrested for cannabis in Virginia are less likely to find jobs and housing.

If the new bill passes through the State Senate, it will be a big step in the right direction for the state after killing a full-blown legalization bill in 2019.

What is HB972?

House Bill 972 is a very simple bill. All it would do is decriminalize possession of a half ounce of cannabis, resulting in just a $25 fine if caught. With a simple, straight forward goal, it’s easy to see why the bill was able to garner bipartisan support.

Of course there are those who are against the bill, some of whom are surprisingly pro-legalization groups. The ACLU for example claims the bill doesn’t do enough, and that more people will be incarcerated for not being able to pay the $25 fine. Frankly this is asinine. If you can afford to buy a half ounce of cannabis, you can afford a $25 fine, or you shouldn’t be buying cannabis because you don’t have your priorities straight.

So the question that is being asked now that decriminalization seems likely is, when can we expect legalization?

Virginia Cannabis Legalization

It’s probably safe to say right now that Virginia marijuana laws won’t be moving toward legalization in 2020. Right now, Virginia lawmakers sent the idea of legalization to a non-partisan committee to study, they say that the study could take a year. The results may give lawmakers guidance on whether they want to re-visit legalization in 2021.

In the meantime, Virginians trying to access cannabis medically are in for quite a struggle. Virginia technically doesn’t even have a functioning medical marijuana program. What they do offer is an Affirmative Defense clause for patients who given permission by their physician to use cannabis.

However, not many doctors are prescribing cannabis because of the legal risk and lack of incentive. Not that patients would really benefit from permission anyway.

All Virginia marijuana laws allow currently are CBD oil and THC-A oil, neither of which are psychoactive or regulated. This leaves patients who are given permission very few options, including traveling across state lines to states like Maryland to obtain medical cannabis with the risk of getting arrested upon re-entry to Virginia.

Suffice to say Virginia won’t be turning into a cannabis haven any time soon, but residents can hopefully rest easy soon knowing they’ll no longer risk jail time for half a little bit of cannabis.

Whoopi Golderbg’s Cannabis Business Tanks

by Travis C | Feb 6, 2020 | 420, 420 News, Blog, Business, Culture

Whoopi & Maya, the medical cannabis company co-founded by Whoopi Goldberg, is closing up shop, according to a statement posted on its website.

In an interview with CNN Business, Rick Cusick, a Whoopi & Maya board member who helped found the company with Goldberg and Om Edibles founder Maya Elisabeth, said he received word Friday from Goldberg that she planned to step away from the brand.

“It became clear to everybody that Whoopi and Maya wanted a divorce,” Cusick said, noting he was speaking for himself and not the company or its board. “How do you do that? Because both of them were very integral to what we were doing.”

Whoopi Goldberg’s cannabis blunder

Four years ago this week, Whoopi & Maya launched with a specific focus on providing medical cannabis for people who suffered from menstrual pain. When they started the company, Goldberg and Elisabeth saw a large market opportunity in an area that not many people wanted to address, Goldberg told The Cannabist, the Denver Post’s cannabis-centric website, in 2016.

“They wanted to include menstrual cramps in the list of things you can prescribe medical marijuana for,” Goldberg said in the interview, “but the governor said that will never happen in New Jersey because our doctors only prescribe marijuana for ‘real’ pain. The fact that people think of (women’s health) as a niche market — that he didn’t think of menstrual cramps as ‘real’ pain — tells me that there’s a lot of education to do on this subject.”

The reasons for the closure of Whoopi & Maya went beyond personal fissures, Cusick said.

No special treatment for celebrities

When the company launched, California was still a solely medical cannabis market. Come November 2016, the state passed Proposition 64, which legalized adult-use sales. As the state folded in the medical cannabis regulations into the new program, it was difficult for operators like Whoopi & Maya to adapt, he said.

“Suddenly we’re jumping through hoops like every other company in California,” he said. “We were well on the way to [being cash-flow positive] but then we had to jump through hoops to change our packaging … and then change our packaging again.” Working in an emerging industry proved challenging, he said.

Read the original story on CNN.

Is That Dirt Weed? How to Rate Your Cannabis Quality

by Travis C | Jan 31, 2020 | 420, 420 Culture & Travel, Blog, Broscience Mythbusters, Culture, Growing

Cannabis has come a long way just in the last decade. But just because there’s more high quality cannabis available doesn’t mean the dirt weed can’t still make its way into your sack.

There’s plenty of obvious dirt weed out there. The Mexican bricks, the seed-filled nugs, unflushed bud that won’t burn or tastes terrible. Luckily all of this can be avoided!

With a little bit of knowledge you can make sure your cannabis isn’t dirt weed before you even smoke it. Using your eyes, nose and fingers you would be surprised how much you can find out about your sack of bud.

Does it look like dirt weed?

The most obvious way to tell if you have some dirt weed is to just look at it. If it’s really bad, you’ll probably be able to tell.

Yellowing leaves, brown buds, and a lack of trichomes on the outside are typically signs of a bud that is not great quality. But there are plenty of strains out there that might not look good, but still taste great and produce great effects.

For this reason, some buds take a closer look. Maybe that’s with an actual loupe or microscope to analyze the bud more closely. But for your average consumer just checking out a fresh sack of bud, that means bringing in the smell.

How does it smell?

Interestingly and luckily for us, a lot of dirt weed smells the same. There’s a signature smell that bad cannabis has that resembles old, dry hay. Like if you went to a farm, grabbed a handful of hay that has been sitting outside for the last month and took a whiff. If you get that smell from your cannabis, it could be old, moldy, or just straight low quality.

Cannabis has a lot of unique terpenes that give it different odors depending on the phenotype and genetics the plant carries. There are plenty of cannabis strains that most would consider to be high quality that have a unique, and sometimes off-putting smell. For example there’s Cat Piss, which gets its name from the unique odor it gives off.

In case you aren’t familiar, cat piss doesn’t smell good. Yet the Cat Piss strain is a well-liked and even sought-out strain by connoisseurs everywhere for its rarity. So if even weird smelling cannabis strains can still be high quality, how can you tell if you have dirt weed? Fingers.

How’s it feel?

So your looking at your sack of bud; it doesn’t look great, but it’s not brown, the smell isn’t like your usual stuff but it doesn’t smell like hay either. At this point, you could be dealing with a pretty unique strain, a mediocre bud or you’re just missing one key thing; the feel.

An important thing to remember when it comes to feeling out a bud is that dry does not always mean bad. Colorado cannabis is naturally more dry due to the lack of humidity and elevation, which makes the cannabis buds almost crumble in your fingers with a little pressure (which is great if you don’t have a grinder). California cannabis on the other hand has much more moisture, and can even be difficult to break apart and grind up (but typically burns a little more slowly). Nevertheless the importance of checking a bud with your hands shouldn’t be overlooked. If the bud feels a little too wet, break it open and check for bud rot.

There’s one thing a good bud has regardless of it’s dryness, and that’s stickiness. Trichome content will tell you a lot about your cannabis’ quality just by look and touch. Not every bud is frosty and caked in trichomes, but if you break it apart in your fingers and it leaves some sticky resin on your finger tips and more smells come out when you break it apart, that’s a good sign.

Overall, if you get a bud that looks and smells questionable, you’re probably better off just avoiding it. However if you’re in a pinch and it’s all you got, always double check to make sure it is safe to consume by cracking it open and making sure it isn’t moldy. Let’s be real, we smoked a lot worse 15 years ago, and the odds of smoking some cannabis that will actually make you sick are pretty low. But it’s always better to safe than sorry, and with your eyes, nose and fingers you can tell if a bud is good enough for you, or if it’s just some dirt weed.

Budgeting Your Home Grow

by Travis C | Jan 22, 2020 | 420, Blog, Culture, Growing

Whether it’s your first time building out a home grow or you just haven’t bought new gear in a while, budgeting is essential.

If you don’t want any of the advice or details and you just want to know if it’s cheap or expensive to build out your own grow, the answer is yes.

In other words, you can do it the cheap way or you can do it the right way. That’s not to say setting up a grow as cheap as possible can’t work out, but in the end you might end up spending more with all the problems cheap set ups can cause.

Grow Space

Budgeting out your home grow space is one of the only aspects of home growing that you can potentially save some money on. This is because if you have a nice walk-in closet, or storage space you aren’t using, you have a grow space.

For others without the extra space, you either have to build your own grow space like a greenhouse in the backyard, or you can buy a grow tent. Grow tents make it super easy to get going because they come with holes to pipe in ventilation, reflective walls to help with light, and other features.

If you just have a closet space, you can just as easily line the walls with some plastic and pick up some reflective material to help with light penetration. The size of your grow space will also determine how many pots you’ll be able to fit and in turn, how many plants you’ll be able to grow.

When it comes to pricing out your grow space, you can spend close to nothing, or you can spend a lot. But on the high end, expect to pay a couple hundred for a grow tent or the supplies to build a small greenhouse.

Pots and Medium

You can save a lot of money on pots by using traditional plastic pots. They won’t cost more than $10 for half a dozen depending on the size you want, but plastic has its restrictions.

A lot of growers instead choose to use fabric pots because they provide more aeration and some brands have handles attached for easy transport. If you decide to set up a flood and drain hydroponic table system (if you have the space of course), fabric pots absorb water much better than the few holes in plastic pots allow.

Cost-wise, fabric pots aren’t too much more expensive than plastic pots, only a dollar or so more depending on size. As for mediums, the options are much more varied.

Potting soil is always a good option for your standard grow, especially just starting out. It’s affordable and cost-effective, though it limits how often you can feed, and depending on the soil blend, you may have to adjust pH or other nutrients to account for variations in nutritional content that might already be in the soil.

For this reason, you should consider a soilless medium. Coco fiber and rockwool are two of the most popular soilless mediums currently, mainly because of their inert characteristics that allow growers to feed more often resulting in bigger plants. Also, soilless mediums are typically the cheaper option.

A bag of basic potting soil will typically run you about $15, with higher end blends costing up to $20 or more. Factor in your pot sizes and you can determine exactly how many bags you need to fill all your pots and how much it will cost.

Lights

It might seem like the easy choice to go online, do a google search for some grow lights and pick one of the cheaper options. You’ll save a couple bucks, but the product you receive might end up a little different from the product that was advertised.

A lot of low end lights draw you in with their price point, but once your bulb or ballast stops working after a month, you’re stuck either buying from the same crappy brand, or buying new lights all together. You’ll thank yourself later if you dish out some extra dough for quality lights that will last a long time.

Before picking your lights, you need to calculate your space’s square footage to determine what kind of light would best fit the space. Higher wattage lights will cover a much larger area, and using them in a smaller space won’t help your plants. But you also don’t want to get a light that is too weak and doesn’t provide enough light for all of your plants.

If you decide to go the cheap route, you can get T5 bulbs for vegging your plants, and a 315W for flower without breaking the bank. But for the most effective growth, 1000W Double Ended lights will give the most bang for your buck, with the standard brands coming in around $400-500. Keep in mind if you don’t have the right size space or a means to keep it cool, 1000W bulbs can really heat up your room and damage your plants.

For this reason it’s always wise to invest in some solid ventilation.

Ventilation

When it comes to ventilation there are two essentials every home grow should have, no matter the size of your grow space; a carbon filter and a fan. These two items should never be overlooked when you’re growing at home.

Your plants might like a warm environment, but they don’t like a stagnate environment with stale air. With your lights producing so much heat, you need to move the air around your grow space to prevent overheating. Just having one rotating fan can make a huge difference in keeping your plants and your room cool.

Even if you’re growing the best smelling flowers in the neighborhood, nobody wants their whole house reeking. A carbon filter scrubs the air in your room by pulling it in and cleansing it before releasing it. If you have a closed system where you don’t need to pump the air out, you can recirculate it into your room with a carbon filter.

You can find a few different, quality, small carbon filter options for under $200, with prices rising steadily up into the $300s for larger filters. Fans are also pretty cheap, with 6″ clip-on fans for $20 or less, and higher end large standing fans for $70.

Water

One of the most common mistakes first time growers will make is using tap water to water their plants or mix with nutrients without proper precaution. Tap water contains chloramines, and these chemicals interfere with biological components of nutrients rendering them useless.

If you’re trying to save money and hand water because you only have six plants, that’s just fine. You can even avoid buying a water filter to deal with the chloramines by letting your water sit for 24 hours before mixing with your nutrients. But let’s be real, your plants need to be fed regularly and unless you get on a schedule of pouring water 24 hours in advance in a way that you have a steady supply of usable water, a water filter is the most efficient option.

Starting around $100, a water filter can filter out chlorine, sediment and other chemicals that naturally occur in tap water so you can mix right away without having to wait.

If money isn’t an issue, you can optimize your water and feedings with irrigation. On the cheap end the equipment will run you $500 or more, with the most expensive component being the water pump.

Basic Estimates

If you’ve made it this far, you should know well by now that the costs of setting up your home grow can vary greatly. But we can come up with some rough numbers for getting started from scratch.

If you’re really pinching pennies and just want to get going, you can buy the cheap lights, use whatever grow space you got with plastic pots and hand water, and you’ll still be looking at around $300 when all is said in done. For the average grower with a little more change to spare, $500 can really boost what you can get and help you get started on the right foot.

Of course there’s really no limit to how much you can spend to get the best gear for your home grow. If you’re really serious of growing and want to transition into a professional environment eventually, it’s smart to grow with good gear so you can advance your craft. Just remember that it won’t come cheap!